


Art gallery date

by fandomfan



Series: James Dates [4]
Category: Black Sails
Genre: Carpenter!James, Future Fix-It, M/M, Post-Canon, Post-Series, Reconciliation, Tumblr Prompt
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-01-05
Updated: 2018-01-05
Packaged: 2019-02-28 12:26:14
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,357
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13271436
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/fandomfan/pseuds/fandomfan
Summary: John gets to see some of what James has been up to while they've been apart.





	Art gallery date

**Author's Note:**

> Stand-alone, but in the same timeline as the other dates in this series. Possibly also in the same timeline as [my John Silver Appreciation Week ficlet](https://archiveofourown.org/works/12981093).

This is not an afternoon James has been anticipating without a roll of dread in his stomach. In fact, he is here in his workshop in the barn on a Sunday only at Thomas’s urging. 

“It will be good for you,” Thomas had said. “For both of you.” And his beloved face had been so full of earnest conviction that James acquiesced, as he always does when met with that look.

So here he sits, absentmindedly sanding a bench for the Shaw family while one ear remains pricked for the uneven gait whose cadence has never truly disappeared from his mind. Sure enough, there it is. Step-thud step-thud step-thud closer and closer until it stops and he turns and there is John Silver.

“Hello,” says Silver, and it sounds and he looks just as ill at ease as James feels. James grunts an acknowledgement.

Silver grimaces, a fleeting flinch wiped away as soon as James registers it. “Madi told me to find you here, today,” he forges on, his voice even and stilted.

“And Thomas said you’d be coming. It seems the two of them have forged an alliance,” James allows. It is not the first time they’ve spoken since Silver and Madi took the house nearest James and Thomas’s several months ago. Not the first conversation, no, but every time they exchange words, it twists something tighter in James’s gut, so he avoids it as much as he can.

Silver nods ruefully. “I sometimes think they are merely looking for reasons to get the pair of us out so they might discuss the newest pamphlets together in peace,” he says, and the small, fond smile he wears as he says it is surely twin to the one James often catches on his own face when he speaks of Thomas. He cannot help that his mouth twitches a bit in response. Silver looks desperately hopeful for a second, and then that, too, is gone from his face.

The knot in James’s belly tightens again. His voice comes gruffer than intended as he stands and says, “Yes, I’m sure. Come on then, I’m to show you something.” He strides across the workshop at a speed that does not allow for a one-legged man’s needs. Silver is right behind him, matching pace, saying nothing. His silence is like an itch in a place James can’t scratch.

James opens a door and leads them into the space that serves as his showroom for when potential customers stop by. He mainly builds furniture—solid, functional, basic pieces for the nearby residents—but occasionally someone is in the market for something more refined or decorative, and so James keeps this small corner of the barn to display pieces that show more of his skills. He does not relish bringing Silver here.

“What am I supposed to–“ Silver begins, then cuts himself off with a little _oh_ as James throws open the shutters and lets the afternoon light stream in. It filters over the rich, burnished woods of the shelves that line the room, each one holding examples of James’s work. Silver moves to a case by the window that is filled with marquetry boxes. He runs his fingertips over the inlay on one lid and says, “Did you make all of these?” with some wonderment audible in his voice.

“Yeah,” James replies. He is acutely uncomfortable in the middle of the room.

“They’re beautiful,” Silver says, lifting the hinged lid of another box and caressing the compartments fitted inside it.

James grunts again. Silver moves along the shelves, trailing his fingers over turned spoons and lacquered gaming boards and polished combs for ladies’ hair. He touches so gently with hands gone rough from his years at sea. James finds he is staring at how gracefully Silver’s hands still move, and it is only when Silver approaches one particular display shelf that he realises the folly of his distraction. “I’m sure you’ve seen enough,” he tries to interject, but it is hopeless and too late.

Silver exclaims over the shelf full of tiny, carved figurines. “I have not seen enough until I’ve seen these. They are incredible!” And indeed, he seems enraptured into forgetting the awkward near-silence between them. He picks one up, then another, holding them close to his face to examine. “The workmanship is truly astounding. I’d no idea you could do this. All these fine details… They’re so… Is this one…? Wait, are they all…?”

He trails off into uncertainty as he registers what he is looking at. This is why James did not want Silver in this room.

Currently held in Silver’s careful fingertips is a wooden shark not five centimetres long with a minuscule harpoon projecting from its back.

Silver returns it to its shelf gingerly, daring a sidelong glance at James, who cannot remember being so disquieted in his entire eventful life. Whatever Silver sees in him must not encourage conversation, and instead he picks up the next figure on the shelf. It is a tiny pig, spitted between two poles. The next is a crutch carved as though for a doll. Next to that is a pair of human figurines brandishing diminutive swords at each other. One of them is sleek-headed and the other has one leg and a mane of painstakingly carved curls that billow out behind it.

Silver finally raises his face to James, who sighs heavily and meets his gaze. There is nowhere else to go. “Ask me,” he says.

Silver says nothing, but his eyes are stark-wide and so blue.

“Ask,” James repeats, resigned. “You may as well."

“Why?” Silver finally manages. It is whispered and rusty and it sounds like the thing in James’s belly feels.

“I don’t exactly know,” James says, and it is truth of a kind.

“ _Why_?” Silver repeats with desperation in his voice.

James can’t look away from him and isn’t sure he’d want to if he were physically able. “You weren’t here,” he says. “You weren’t here, and they were a way to… to remember.”

Silver takes a shuddering inhale, as though he’d forgot to breathe, and despite everything, everything rotten and dark between them, every promise broken, every lie and betrayal, James does not want to see Silver unhappy. He never has, in truth. He steps towards him hesitantly. Silver is trembling, very slightly.

“Why did you want to remember?” he asks, and his voice is trembling, too, and James can give him nothing but honesty.

“Because I missed you,” he says.

Silver makes a sound that is part sob, part laugh, all raw. He ducks his head to the side, and his hair falls across his face, hiding it.

James approaches slowly. He reaches out to tuck that wild hair behind Silver's ear, and Silver turns into his hand like an eager pup. The knotted place in James feels unstable. He leaves his hand at Silver’s cheek and haltingly asks, “Did… Did you miss me?”

Silver gives another of those laughing sobs, and it’s as though someone has released the floodgate holding his quicksilver tongue in check. “I’ve missed you like I’d lost my other leg. I’ve been hobbling through my life without you, and the hope that perhaps… that perhaps you might forgive me, might want to see me, might… want me… well, the truth of it is that that’s all that’s got me out of bed some days.”

The thing in James's belly unravels like it was never there. It’s easy now to speak.

“I forgave you long ago,” he says. Silver’s breath hitches like a swallowed cry. James uses both hands to lift his stricken face and continues in a low murmur. “There has not been one single day gone by when I haven’t longed to see you.” He smoothes his thumbs along those fine, broad cheekbones. “And you must know that I’ve wanted you from just about the first moment I ever set eyes on you.”

Silver is crying now, tears overswelling his eyes. He smiles through it and clutches at the back of James’s head and just like that, after years dreaming about it, James is kissing John Silver.

**Author's Note:**

> I pretty much just want James to end up as a happy, bookish carpenter surrounded by people who love him. That's a significant portion of what goes on at [my Tumblr](http://fand0mfan.tumblr.com), so come join that Important Discourse.


End file.
